Chan Lowe: Supreme Court decision: It's the surreal thing

It’s true that the Founding Fathers were, for the most part, prosperous burghers who weighted the system toward the propertied classes. The Electoral College, for example, while protecting the prerogatives of smaller states, also had the effect of placing a cordon sanitaire between the more numerous uneducated, landless mob and their actual self-rule.

The gap between rich and poor, however, was much narrower in those days. It’s questionable whether a few gents in brocade waistcoats and powdered wigs could have envisioned a tiny cohort of ultra-wealthy who possessed the economic power to purchase the entire federal government.

The wealth disparity we live with today is not only quantitatively different from that of the 18th century, but has grown so vast that it has become qualitative in its effects. The quaint old idea that speech was free, and that more money bought more of it, had validity as long as those who tried to influence the outcome of elections had plenty of competition.

Now that we have presidential campaigns reaching billion-dollar expenditure levels, is it still healthy for our democracy when a pair of brothers are allowed to spend two or three billion dollars on their chosen champion, as long as they spread it out through enough shell organizations? Or to drop unlimited amounts through their proxies in the service of electing every one of the 535 members of Congress?

The Court has handed down its decision, and it is the law of the land. The vast, interlocking mechanism of politics — with its candidates, consultants, lobbyists, political action committees, superPACs, fundraisers and party hierarchies — will learn to adapt to the new reality, as it adapted in the aftermath of the watershed Citizens United case. Unsurprisingly, there’s plenty of cheering coming from players in the electoral industry, since the decision means they can squeeze more lucre from the donor class. It’s Christmas in April, just in time for the off-year elections.

The pundits have been saying that the decision is a boon for the Republican Party, but eventually rank-and-file Americans from all parts of the political spectrum will realize that a profound disservice was done not only to their country, but also to the premise that all men are created equal.